Mediagazer: Publisher's Letter Explains Limits on Branded Content at The Times (Ravi Somaiya/New York Times)

5:15 PM ET, December 19, 2013

Top News:

Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:

Publisher's Letter Explains Limits on Branded Content at The Times — Seeking to allay potential newsroom concerns about the introduction of a digital product called native advertising, the publisher of The New York Times on Thursday said that features like a color bar and the words “Paid Post” …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Poynter, Digiday and @romenesko

Michael Sebastian / AdAge:
The New York Times Is Going to Label the Hell Out of its Native Ads

Discussion: Capital New York

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:
Pledging Clarity, The Times Plunges Into Native Advertising

Discussion: Capital New York and @edmundlee

Jay Rosen / Pressthink:

A First Look at NewCo's structure — Today Pierre Omidyar announced some details about how his new venture in news will be organized. My summary and explanation... First, the official release: … As I previously explained to readers of PressThink, I am an adviser to Omidyar's company …

Discussion: Omidyar Group, Poynter, FishbowlNY, Gigaom, Forbes, Guardian, Capital New York, Mediaite, @bbhorne, The Verge, @jayrosen_nyu, @agolis, @zseward, @_alastair and @jaredbkeller

Nicole Levy / Capital New York:
Greenwald hints at future of Omidyar enterprise

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab and USA Today

Jonathan Kaiman / Guardian:

Beginning next year, Chinese reporters must pass ideology exam to retain press credentials — Chinese journalists face Marxist ideology exam — Exam to be based on 700-page manual that prohibits published reports from featuring comments that go against party line

Discussion: @mlcalderone, The Huffington Post, @raju and Kirk LaPointe's …

Teddy Ng / South China Morning Post:
Propaganda officials to head top-tier Chinese journalism schools

Discussion: @mlcalderone

Reuters:
China renews press cards for Bloomberg, several New York Times reporters

Discussion: Poynter, Washington Post, Associated Press and Wall Street Journal

Mike Deri Smith / BBC:

Porn filters block sex education websites — The new filters are designed to block sites unsuitable for children — Pornography filters used by major internet service providers are blocking websites offering sex education and advice on sexual health and porn addiction, the BBC has learned.

Discussion: Forbes, The Independent, Electronista, Yahoo! News, Telegraph, @codepo8, @refugecharity, TechRadar.com, @thomasfuchs, @jackschofield, @hvklav, @dickmandrake, Crave, Digital Spy and Gigaom

Katie Zhu / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Moving responsive design beyond screen size — Imagine opening NPR's app on your phone to read a story before heading to work. You glance at the clock and realize you're running late, so you grab your keys and rush out the door. As you start walking, the app starts playing the audio story …

Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:

Times Will Study Potential Changes to Its Sunday Magazine — The New York Times Magazine will be reassessed by the newspaper's managing editor, Dean Baquet, and Deborah Needleman, the editor of T Magazine, for the next three months before a new editor is appointed, according to a memo sent to staff.

Discussion: Capital New York, Poynter, Gawker, The New York Observer, The Huffington Post, @digiphile, @romenesko and @carr2n

Matthew Lynley / BuzzFeed:

WSJ's revamped tech section to be called “WSJD”, launches in January — The Wall Street Journal's Answer To AllThingsD Launches Next Month — The Journal's revamped tech coverage section launches next month . The company is launching a global conference, too. — Jason Reed / Reuters

Discussion: @lexnfx, @ryanlawler and Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Kristen Hare / Poynter:

ASNE president expects ‘concrete steps’ after meeting with White House about access — On Tuesday, press organizations met with officials at the White House to discuss access to the president. Frustrated news organizations hand-delivered a letter to the White House in late November …

Discussion: Mediaite, TheHill and Politico

Reuters:

Exclusive: Dish eyes 2014 bid for T-Mobile - sources — (Reuters) - Dish (DISH.O) is considering making a bid for T-Mobile (TMUS.N) next year, according to people close to the matter, in what would be the satellite TV provider's second attempt in as many years at acquiring a major wireless operator …

Discussion: Gigaom, NEWSFACTOR, ZDNet, The Verge, Fox Business, Ars Technica, GeekWire and Electronista

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Shows aren't in the future for Washington Post's PostTV — The Washington Post's PostTV video initiative will stop presenting information as shows and move to “easily digestible segments,” Washington Post spokesperson Kris Coratti tells Poynter in an email.

John McDermott / Digiday:

The Sporting News Throws Mobile Hail Mary Against ESPN — Sporting News is throwing a mobile Hail Mary in its bid to gain ground on ESPN. In order to level the playing field with the self-styled Worldwide Leader in Sports, Sporting News is hoping to enlist teammates in the form of aggregation.

Lauren Rabaino / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The year we contextualize the news — My prediction isn't particularly snazzy. It doesn't require drones or sensors or wearables. It gets back to common sense, highlighting our role as an industry in creating informed citizens. 2014 will be the year of contextualization.

Discussion: @niemanlab and @jayrosen_nyu

Meg James / Los Angeles Times:

Katie Couric's syndicated talk show to end after this season — Katie Couric's syndicated television talk show has been canceled. — Disney/ABC Television and Couric jointly announced the move Thursday afternoon. — “While production will continue on “Katie” through June 2014 …

Discussion: The Wrap and Deadline.com

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Huffington touts ‘third metric’ success — If 2012 was the Year of the Pulitzer for The Huffington Post, 2013 was undoubtedly the Year of the Third Metric, a wellness and lifestyle mindset that has become an obsession of founding mother and editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington.

Discussion: Folio

Chris Cillizza / The Fix:

Why Washington journalism doesn't suck — Of late, there's a cottage industry blooming in political journalism: Blasting political journalism. — The latest example came in piece that Sam Youngman of the Lexington Herald-Leader wrote for Politico Magazine entitled “Take This Town and Shove It”.

Discussion: Politico, Slate, @noltenc, @samyoungman, @declanm, @dcplod, @g_r_e_g, @aaronblakewp, @postreid and @romenesko

Mike Shields / Adweek:

Questionable Traffic Seems to Follow This Video Company Everywhere — In mid-2012, the online content/distribution firm Touchstorm was pushing further into original Web video, particularly for its lifestyle site Howdini. Like many in the industry, Howdini was attracting solid CPMs but struggled to get enough views.

Discussion: @digitalshields and AdExchanger

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The coming disruption of television news — For commercial news media in the Western world, the underlying thrust in 2014 remains the same that it was 2013 and has been for a decade or more. It is a move towards a world in which we will have more media — including stakeholder media serving …

Discussion: @rasmus_kleis and @niemanlab

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:

Advance Local president: ‘signs of success are everywhere’ — Privately held Advance has been mostly mum on the results of its cutback of print editions in most markets and the relaunch of its newspapers as digital media companies. But in a year-end letter to employees …